A prompt template that saves an hour on every feature
Here's the trick. Almost all the time you lose with an agent isn't its fault — it's a vague brief. And the fix is a tiny skeleton you fill in every time: context, example, constraints.
It looks almost suspiciously simple. But it removes the guesswork — the exact thing that turns a five-minute task into an hour of back-and-forth.
The three slots
- Context — what you're building and which pieces already exist. “We have a
<Card>component and auseUser()hook.” - Example — one concrete instance of the result you want, even a rough one. Models copy patterns far better than they invent them.
- Constraints — what not to do. “Don't add new dependencies. Keep it under 40 lines. Match the existing file style.”
Fill those three slots and you'll feel the difference right away. Fewer wrong turns. Fewer “actually, I meant…” corrections. And an answer that lands close to right on the first try. Save the skeleton as a snippet and pull it out on every new feature.
